A Ball Of Fire Ants Behaves Like A Material

Featured 01/25/2014

"In this video, about 8,000 fire ants are placed in a beaker. The walls of the beaker are lightly dusted with talc powder to prevent the ants from escaping. The ants link to one another and as a group behave as a bulk material with viscoelastic properties. The elastic response is due to compliance in the linkages."